A brief history of the music video

A brief history of the music video

What is considered to be the first official music video and why is it
different from what came before?

‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by ‘Queen’ is considered to be the first music
video ever created and it marked the beginning of the video era.
This video was had editing effects of lighting the bands faces in way
you can only see them, multiply their faces with a kaleidoscope and
editing the faces to multiply and make them different colours. This
is considered the first music video as the video was created to go with the song and to
be its own thing.

Before the ‘first music video’ television shows existed that showed bands and artists
performing their songs; name a UK and a US one and say why they existed (for the
audience)
Top of the pops first aired 1st January 1964 and stopped in 2006, was one first UK
television shows that consisted of performances from some of that week's best-
selling popular music artists, with a rundown of that week's singles chart1. Hullabaloo
is a US version of top of the pops that did the same thing, but for US audiences
instead, it served as a big-budget, quality showcase for the leading pop acts of the
day. 2

David Bowie released a music video in 1980, it
used ground-breaking special effects – what was
the song and what, do you think, is the song and
video about?

The song ‘ashes to ashes’ used effects to make
weird, but interesting shots by editing the colour
of objects, people or the landscape to create weird images.

What massive event took place in 1981? Hint, it relates to
the exhibition of music videos!

MTV launched which made watching music videos really
easy, this channel ran 24/7. Before MTV there would be
programmes that featured a band and may play one or
more of their music videos.

1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_of_the_Pops
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hullabaloo_(TV_series)

In 1984, a female artist released a song that a certain TV channel refused to play. What was the song
and why, do you think, they refused to play it?

A song called ‘Self control’ by ‘Laura Branigan’
was refused by MTV to be played on the
channel until some cuts where made. This is
probably due to the theme of the song being
about sex and how women are represented as
objects and the masked male and how
unidentifiable he was and the time of which
this was made, AIDS was a big problem and this seemed to show having sex with multiple strangers.

Also in 1984, Michael Jackson released, what would become, one of the most iconic music videos of
all time; what was it, why was it so unusual for the time and what is so special about the VHS sales?

Thriller

In 1985, aha released the song Take on Me but what
animation effect is used and how is it achieved / created?

Rotoscoping is the method they used in this video for the
movement scenes of the guy that looked like a drawing. This
method is when a person traces over film to look like
animation, they do this by projecting live-action movie
images on to glass and then they can trace over the image. It
is considered a controversial way to apply animation.

Who released the video for Sledgehammer in 1986 and why do you
think it was so popular?

Aardman Animations was one’s reasonable for helping make and
releasing the music video for Sledgehammer. This video ended up
setting a lot of new standards and was well received and won nine
MTV Video Music Awards in 1987.

In 1995, two famous siblings released a duet which, at the time, was
the most expensive MV to date. Who were they and what was the video?

Michael and Janet Jackson made a song called ‘Scream’ this was the most
expensive music video created at the time by a far gap, costing $10.7 million
(originally $7 million). the music video was about the two people in a spaceship
escaping the normal and being themselves?

Which female artist reached 1 billion views in 2010 and for which
song?

Lady Gaga was the first female artist to reach 1 billion views you
YouTube for her song ‘Bad Romance’.

Also in 2010, which artist released
Coming to Get Me, in collaboration
with Doritos and why was it such a
‘big deal’?

Professor Green released the music
song with Doritos and the reason
why it was big, due to it being the
first to try a full 360 music video
where you could view what you
wanted to see and was the first.